September 22 - 28, 2006 OPEN DIALOGUES:Series focused on the Quilombos of Brazil and Palenques of Venezuela: a series of events that focus on the challenges facing African descendant communities and their historical liberated lands. Throughout the Americas runaway enslaved Africans insisted on their humanity and right to maintain their racial and cultural legacies connected to their historical memories.

Cimarrons/maroons claimed lands in hard to reach isolated locations recreating their sacred and cultural practices against colonial opppression. Overtime these isolated communities have open their communities to outsiders while at the same time trying to assure their protection.

July 14 - 17, 2006 - MANAGUA DECLARATION :Preparatory Meeting of the III Encuentro of the Afro-Caribbean and Afro Latin-American Women’s Network and of the Diaspora and the Regional Conference of the Americas Regarding the Progress and Challenges
In the Action Program Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Other Related Forms of Intolerance.

February 4, 2006"Community Outreach"
Seminar on Planning Process
for SANTIAGO +5
NEW YORK

"Community Outreach" Seminar on Planning Process
for SANTIAGO +5 Official Government-Non-Governmental Organization
[NGO] Follow Up Meeting to the 2001 United Nations World
Conference on Racism, Xenophobia, and Other Forms of Social
Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa.”

GALCI's International Relations Director Humberto Brown
[also a member of International Committee for the Planning
of the SANTIAGO+5 meeting in Brasilia, Brazil], Nilza Iraci
of GELEDES the Afro-Brazilian Women's NGO in Sao Paulo,
Brazil [and member of International Committee for SANTIAGO+5],
and Edna Lima-United Nations Eminent Person Committee and
Monitor of Racial Relations for Latin America and the Caribbean/United
Nations Consultant to the SANTIAGO+5 Process Committee met
with representatives and activists of African Descendant
communities in Greater New York, and academics to discuss
the difficulties in planning the conference that will represent
the official follow up activity to the 2001 World Conference
in Durban. The Brazilian Government though its National
Secretariat [with status of a Ministry] for Historically
Marginalized Ethnic Groups [SEPPIR] is organizing the three
day meeting currently scheduled for May 31-June 2, 2006
in Brasilia, Brazil. This scheduled meeting in reality is
a follow up to the Preparatory Conference for the Americas
that was held in Santiago, Chile in December, 2000.

At that historic meeting, the governments of the Western
Hemisphere and the United Nations accepted the term "AFRICAN
DESCENDANT" in reference to all of the participants
of African heritage, providing a political and generic term
that now is used by political activists around the world.
The magnitude of the African Descendant population of the
Western Hemisphere also was ratified at the Santiago Conference
of 2000, as it was estimated that at least 150 Million persons
within the Western Hemisphere could be considered African
Descendants. The February 4, 2006 meeting at CCCADI informed
the public that perspective participants for the Brasilia
meeting would be divided between Government representatives
and civil society representatives from all of the countries
of the Western Hemisphere. It was important that civil society
organizations develop a process to nominate their representatives
for the Brasilia meeting, as civil society would need to
actively engage and debate with governments as to their
tangible and visible progress in implementing the agreed
to 2001 Durban Action Plan. A "Report Card" from
civil society representatives will demonstrate progress
or the lack of progress in the areas of access to all levels
of formal education by African Descendant youth throughout
the Hemisphere. Health conditions including HIV/AIDS, Malaria,
Tuberculosis, Dengue Fever, and Sickle Cell Anemia will
be monitored. Incarceration rates for young African Descendant
males and females will be monitored, as well as their greater
access to employment opportunities. Land belonging to African
Descendant groups -- including Quilombos, Palenques, and
Cimarron -- will be debated with governments by civil society
representatives attending the Brasilia meeting, and relations
between Indigenous Groups and progress towards potential
alliances between African Descendant and Indigenous groups
will be monitored in Brasilia.

Despite the challenges represented by the SANTIAGO+5 process
and the lack of significant funding for the proposed meeting,
one left the February 4, 2006 meeting with a renewed since
of commitment to try to fulfill the Durban Promise of Increased
Access for the African Descendant communities within the
Western Hemisphere.

February 3, 2006Redefining African American:
“What’s at Stake?”
NEW YORK

Redefining African American "What's at Stake?"
was conceived by the Global Afro Latino and Caribbean Initiative
(GALCI) to engage us all in an active discussion focused
on the diversity of a significant population of African
descendant communities in the Americas. Latin America/Caribbean
has a population of more than 150 million African descendants.
The United States is home to more than 40 million African
descendants that represent United States and foreign born
African descendants. The conference Redefining African American
"What's at Stake?" which took place on February
3, 2006, at Hunter College in New York focused upon the
varied ways that our countries that are home to African
descendants define and maintain our populations marginalized
and disenfranchised. Central to the conversation was the
need for our communities to self define based and our joint
struggles and success at the United Nation's Durban Conference
in 2001 against World Racism, Discrimination, and Xenophophia
where the term African descendants emerged as our self definition.

It is the intent of GALCI to encourage our communities
to host similar conferences that provide a forum for an
open discussion among African Diaspora communities. It is
through critical conversations that insist that we acknowledge
our differences and similarities while forging a future
that is inclusive of us all contributing to the building
of an equitable global society.

A discussion with James Early, Keynote speaker and Director
of the Cultural Heritage Policy at the Smithsonian Institution
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage; Clarence Lusane,
School of International Service, at American University;
Padre Glyn Jemmott Nelson, Mexico Negro Asociación
Civil, Mexico; Basil Wilson, Senior Vice President and Provost
of the Office of Academic Affairs at John Jay College of
Criminal Justice, CUNY; Miriam Jiménez Román,
The Afro-Latino Project in New York; and Dr. Agustin Lao-Montes,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Mission Statement
The Brotherhood/Sister Sol has been created to address the
dire need for supportive programs for Black and Latino youth
who are surrounded by the poverty, drugs, violence, racism
and mis-education which plague America's cities. The Brotherhood/Sister
Sol provides these youth with the knowledge, resources,
opportunities, and love necessary in order to understand
and overcome these negative pressures, as well as the skills
to combat them.

The Brotherhood/Sister Sol is not simply an organization;
it is more accurately a way of life. Providing youth with
an opportunity to explore their ideas, identity and future
among peers, with the support and guidance of their immediate
elders, is a natural method of promoting positive development
into adulthood.

GALCI attended the SANTIAGO +5 meetings
in Santiago at the headquarters of the United Nations Economic
Commission for Latin America. A mini-regional United Nations
gathering, there were several representatives of indigenous
groups/nations, emigrants’ rights groups, landless
movement representatives, women’s organizations, and
African Descendant communities from all points in the Western
Hemisphere from Canada to Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
Brazil’s Special Secretariat for the Promotion of
Racial Equality Policies/SEPPIR offered to host the official
SANTIAGO+5 meeting, in Brasilia, D.F. Vice-Minister Douglas
Martins galvanized those attending the meetings in Chile
with his eloquence in defending and re-affirming the basic
principles and plan of action of the Durban World Conference
on Racism, Xenophobia, and Other Forms of Social Intolerance.
The fact that SEPPIR was willing to accept the challenge
of holding the conference—despite an absence of international
financing for the event—made the Brazilian commitment
to the meeting all the more impressive. Recent information
from Brasilia has indicated that dates for SANTIAGO +5 will
be May 31- June 2, 2006 in Brasilia, Brazil. Those interested
in participating in this event are awaiting confirmation
from SEPPIR that funding has been secured from the United
Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights/Geneva
to assist international civil society representatives to
travel to Brasilia to attend SANTIAGO +5.

August 7- August 8, 2005SANTA FE, ARGENTINA

GALCI and the Afro Latino Youth Activists traveled to Santa
Fe, Argentina to better understand the complexity of race
relations in the Southern Cone. The Afro-Indigenous Cultural
Center in Santa Fe hosted the visitors. The city of Santa
Fe was almost destroyed by floods and mud slides in 2003.
Municipal authorities in Santa Fe, according to the Afro-Indigenous
Cultural Central provided minimal financial assistance to
local residents. Large sections of the city continue to
exhibit the scars of the floods and mudslide, while many
Santa Fe youth have dropped out of high school and institutions
of higher learning believing that their futures hold little
promise for them. One reason for the visit of the international
youth to Santa Fe was to demonstrate solidarity with the
local youth.

Visits to the local Santa Fe museum and to the President
of the Santa Fe Municipal Council by the international youth
activists proved somewhat contentious, as the activists
peppered local officials with questions concerning the need
for affirmative action policies to provide outreach programs
to poor mixed-race youth to allow them to work as “interns”
at the local museum, as well as have that institution promote
exhibitions respecting the ethnic diversity of Santa Fe.
The activists also suggested that the Municipal Council
encourage ethnic diversity in the curricula of Santa Fe’s
primary and secondary schools, as well as encouraging mixed
race local youth to consider internships at the Municipal
Council. Clearly the reaction of all local officials to
the comments and criticisms of the Spanish-speaking international
youth activists often was one of amazement and some irritation.
GALCI-officials reminded local officials that youth activists
around the world have the characteristic of irritating officials,
as the perspectives of youth usually manage to irritate
their elders!
GALLERY

GALCI Collaboration with National Afro Argentine Steering
Committee to highlight the existence and contributions of
Afro Argentines, the Centennial of Argentina’s Cape
Verdean Community, and the diverse African professional
community currently residing in Argentina.

Major conference events were held at the Universidad 3
Febrero, Argentina’s first academic institution with
a Master’s Degree Course in Human Rights and Race
Relations. The three-day conference closely analyzed the
social and economic history of Afro-Argentines, and their
current successful efforts to compel the Argentine government
to include a racial category on the 2005 national census
process. Because of generous financial assistance from the
Inter-American Foundation and the Ford Foundation, GALCI
was able to invite Afro Latino youth activists from the
United States, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Honduras, Peru,
Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, Uruguay, and
Argentina to participate in the Buenos Aires conference.
The perspectives of the Afro Latino youth activists greatly
enhanced the seminar, with their grassroots community development
experiences employing contemporary multi-media techniques.
Afro Argentine and Afro-Indigenous cultural activists from
Santa Fe, Argentina performed a mixed-media event in Buenos
Aires demonstrating the cultural realities of mixed-race
Argentineans in the interior of Argentina.

Holding the Afro Argentine conference at the Universidad
3 Febrero campus in central Buenos Aires provided important
visibility for the minority Afro Argentine and African communities,
as their history, social problems, and development agenda
became known to a much wider local audience and the visiting
international African descendant representatives.

March 11, 2005Panel Discussion: “Crisis
in African and African Diaspora, Latin American and Caribbean
Studies within the Context of Ethnic Studies Programs.”
Panel 1: The Need for African American, Latin American and
Caribbean Studies, a Historical Perspective.

Panel 2: The Status for African American, Latin American
and Caribbean Studies.

Panel 3: Movement Politics of the Past and Strategies for
the Present and Future: A Higher Education Curriculum of
Inclusion.

September 2004African Diaspora in the Americas
Roundtable and Issue Forum, part of the
Congressional Black Caucus 34th Annual Legislative Conference.
GALCI Co-Director, Marta Moreno Vega, moderated a Panel on
Social Issues and Development for the Caribbean and Latin
America. J. Michael Turner took the opportunity to develop
and strengthen GALCI's national outreach.

May 28th & 29th, 2004
The "Points of Unity"
Dialogue took place at the Franklin H. Williams Caribbean
Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute. As a result of
the Dialogue, the Afro Latino/African American Points of Unity
AdHoc Committee has been formed.
Immediate action will be taken to:
-Create a Multi-Disciplinary Institute
-Create an African Diaspora Publication
-Develop a databank of intersecting organizations, institutions
and individuals
-Networking Site